Dear all, Below are the meetup notes.
TL;DR: org-drill, debugging errors, spaced repetition, howm (alternative to org-roam and denote), org-persist (caching library), org-agenda-prefix-format, setting duration in Org, org-supertag, feature/igc branch (Emacs), speeding up Org mode loading, big vs. small Org files. - As usual, we started from Emacs News https://sachachua.com/blog/2025/01/2025-01-06-emacs-news/ - artsi0m shared a problem he experiences with org-drill https://gitlab.com/phillord/org-drill/-/issues/55#note_2287352315 - He is getting an error when running M-x org-drill-cram =funcall-interactively: Wrong type argument: symbolp, (oref session cram-mode)= - To find out the source of the error, it is useful to get a full backtrace - =M-x toggle-debug-on-error= will make Emacs generate a full backtrace when any error occur - The backtrace will contain the call chain that lead to the error - Inside the backtrace buffer, one can press "e" to evaluate arbitrary Elisp in the context where the error occurred - For example, e session RET will display the value of ~session~ when the error is raised (and hopefully give some clues how ~session~ could have inappropriate value) - we then moved on discussing org-drill itself and what it does https://gitlab.com/phillord/org-drill - artsi0m demoed using org-drill to memories various pieces of information like standard TCP/IP port names - but one can do _a lot more_: https://borretti.me/article/effective-spaced-repetition - org-drill implements spaced repetition (similar to Anki), but in Emacs - The "flash cards" (with questions and answers) are simply Org headings - This makes it trivial to create new cards to learn, in contrast with clunky anki electron-based UI - also, https://github.com/bohonghuang/org-srs/ and https://github.com/l3kn/org-fc/ - more about using spaced repetition - https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/F6ZTtBXn2cFLmWPdM/seven-years-of-spaced-repetition-software-in-the-classroom-1 - https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn - artsi0m also uses https://github.com/kaorahi/howm note manager - howm is a note-taking system that may work with arbitrary text files (including, but not limited to Org mode) - somewhat similar to https://github.com/protesilaos/denote (but a lot more mature) - howm has an interesting feature similar to Org's radio targets - certain keywords (anywhere in the text) will become links to "target" - unlike Org mode, howm makes it work across multiple files - (it would be nice to extend Org targets to work across agenda files) - howm also allows multiple keywords to point to the same target (think of tag aliases) - dmg asked about Org caching and org-persist in particular - org-persist is a library for managing disk caches that Org mode uses 1. Latex preview caches (on WIP latex preview branch) that stores generated images and pre-compiled latex 2. Org parser caches (~org-element-cache-persistent~) to speed up parsing after opening Org files in a new Emacs session - In the case of Org parser, the disk cache is mainly useful the first time an Org file is opened in a new Emacs session - Later, and independently, there is runtime in-memory cache (~org-element-use-cache~) that is used by incremental Org parser - Among other things, caches speed up agenda generation, but they are used in all corners of Org codebase to analyze Org file syntax - Jake asked about my agenda view that contains the latest note before todo keywords: : Focused daily agenda : Friday 17 January 2025 : Org[H]: [1:11/0:40]+1.0x NEXT [#A] Weekly review : * 9 d. ago OrgMeetup[T]: [0:30] +1.0x [note about Jake's question] DOING [#A] Ihor Radchenko [ML:Org mode] (2024) #15 [[bbb:OrgMeetup]] on Wed, Jan 8, 19:00 UTC+3 :COMMON:@home:emacsdev::BOOKMARK:misc:email: - I do it simply using ~org-agenda-prefix-format~ - The format consists of mandatory fixed width prefix + optional suffix with the note - the fixed prefix makes an illusion that the note is prepended to the heading text, before todo keyword - ... but it is instead /appended/ after the prefix - config: https://github.com/yantar92/emacs-config/blob/master/config.org#agenda - there are other components of the agenda prefix, notably repeater indicators - see recent blog post on how to set it up: https://whhone.com/posts/org-agenda-repeated-tasks/ - new-to-org asked about setting duration of agenda tasks - there are multiple notions of "duration" in Org mode in general and agenda in particular - you can use timestamp ranges for appointments - you can use effort estimates - check out dedicated section of Org mode manual: https://orgmode.org/manual/Dates-and-Times.html - we then had a moment of awkward silence, and turned to Emacs News for inspiration - There is a new package https://github.com/yibie/org-supertag - We reached to README first, but it was a bit too high-level that time to understand - [2025-01-18 Sat] Now, a couple of illustrative gifs have been added to the package - It looks like the package is an alternative implementation of org-roam (kind of) - It provides a notion of "supertag" that is essentially a classification of headings: - specific "supertag" can be though of as a heading type, like a "book" - a "book" is defined by tag + specific set of heading properties (like author, title, etc) - org-supertag provides something similar to ~org-bibtex-create~ (or org-capture) to automate creating and populating special heading types with properties - it also re-implements certain features of org-edna, but focuses on triggers being tag change - it does not only provide actions that change headings, but also adds custom fontification of the whole heading for certain tags - it re-implements org-agenda in its own way - it re-implements org-ql-search in its own way - my Emacs crashed (several times), right while screen sharing - that was because I am testing scratch/igc ([2025-01-19 Sun] moved to feature/igc a few days back) with generational garbage collector - https://yhetil.org/emacs-devel/?q=igc - https://yhetil.org/emacs-bugs/86cygle696....@gnu.org/T/#t - https://yhetil.org/emacs-bugs/86tta5xi0q....@gnu.org/T/#t - most likely because I enabled menu bar while screen sharing (which I otherwise rarely do) - Kathink asked whether it is possible to speed up Org mode loading inside Org buffers that are known to be noninteractive (opened and closed automatically by some Elisp code) - we went throgh the code of org-mode major mode definition and found out that most of the things there are either 1. very fast (setting variables) 2. parser initialization (strictly necessary) - I am hoping to make things faster here as well, but that's significant (and sometimes breaking) refactoring work (in progress) 3. can be suppressed by setting ~org-inhibit-startup-visibility-stuff~ or ~org-inhibit-startup~ (Karthink knew these two) 4. can be suppressed by setting ~org-agenda-file-menu-enabled~ (relatively new setting) - this one addresses the problem that creating Emacs menus is relatively costly - normally, Org mode re-creates a menu entry listing all the opened agenda files (by looping over buffers); when _all_ the agenda files are opened at once, one by one, this may give a significant performance impact (scaling with number of buffers opened) - another common trick is doing (delay-mode-hooks ...) around the code opening Org buffer. Although it is generally not safe, except certain very specific scenarios - ~org-mode-hook~ may contain user customizations that can affect Org parser (e.g. setting buffer category) - the problem with disabling parts of Org mode setup (the above "inhibit" variables) is that they really disable things - as long as the org buffer in question is only used programmatically, it does not matter - but when the user switches to that org buffer, there might be issues - karthink suggested that we might somehow postpone visual setup only after the buffer is actually displayed - for example, via ~window-selection-change-functions~ or similar hooks - it might be doable, but I feel that there will be a lot of edge cases out there - for example, once upon a time I tried to create a somewhat similar optimization for initial folding after opening Org buffer: instead of folding immediately, I made folding work like font-lock by folding on idle, incrementally - this was working quite well in testing, until I ran regression tests that revealed that somewhere deep inside Org codebase, an implicit assumption is made that folds are correctly initialized after loading Org mode. That took a while to figure out and that optimization never landed upstream, after all. - Jake asked whether anybody tried to profile loading org-file - Yes, of course. And a number of bottlenecks have been addressed in the recent Org mode releases - someone raised the eternal question on whether to use one big Org file or many small ones - there are pros and cons to both ways - at the end, it is up to each user workflow - common arguments are listed in a dedicated wiki page https://orgmode.org/worg/org-tutorials/org-lookups.html - (feel free to add new things to that page - it is a wiki; wee https://orgmode.org/worg/worg-about.html on how to contribute) :chat: Fellow Jitster Fellow Jitster says:The latest Emacs News: https://sachachua.com/blog/2025/01/2025-01-06-emacs-news/ 16:58 A artsi0m artsi0m says: https://gitlab.com/phillord/org-drill/-/issues/55#note_2287352315 17:03 dmg dmg says:I have been curious about the features that persist information of org files. I think it is org-persist and seems to be on by default. 17:05 Fellow Jitster Fellow Jitster says:(oref OBJ SLOT) Retrieve the value stored in OBJ in the slot named by SLOT. 17:11 Fellow Jitster says:so maybe somehow the session does not have a slot `cram-mode` at the time the setq is called? 17:12 Fellow Jitster Fellow Jitster says:1. M-x toggle-debug-on-error 2. inside backtrace buffer, you may press "e" to check environment 3. you can "e" session to see what is the value 17:12 A artsi0m artsi0m says:Thanks 17:12 Christopher Miller Christopher Miller says:thank you all! i am not able to join for long today, but this has been great. 17:24 Jared Jennings Jared Jennings says:artsi0m, in ...163117.txt something tagged "flaschards" not "flashcards" - not sure if this gets in the way of something you are talking about 17:25 K karthink karthink says:Ihor, I have a question for you about programmatic use of (org-mode), will ask in about fifteen minutes as I have to step away for the moment. 17:25 A artsi0m artsi0m says: https://borretti.me/article/effective-spaced-repetition 17:28 me says: https://kaorahi.github.io/howm/ 17:28 Jared Jennings Jared Jennings says:-- that's fine. i just thought if you had some code looking for the "flashcards" tag, it might fail to find that one ๐ 17:29 A artsi0m artsi0m says:Thanks 17:29 Jared Jennings Jared Jennings says:no problem. thanks to your questions, artsi0m, i now know more than zero about flashcards in org ๐ 17:31 dmg dmg says:does it mean that things like the agenda run faster? 17:31 dmg says:thank you. 17:32 Jake Jake says:Ihor, your org agenda appears to have information appearing *before* the todo keyword in square brackets. But that doesn't look like org-agenda-prefix-format data, though. What is that? 17:33 Jake says:Oh, the alignment seemed different than what I would have expected from the prefix. 17:34 Matthew Page-Lieberman Matthew Page-Lieberman says:Have to go. Will have to catch up with the previous meeting notes. Happy New Year and blessings to everyone. 17:35 new-to-org new-to-org says:How do we duration of agenda tasks? Those that have a definite duration 17:36 Jake Jake says:@new-to-org I think that'd be done with the Effort property. 17:38 me says: https://github.com/yantar92/emacs-config/blob/master/config.org#agenda 17:38 me says:agenda prefix 17:38 me says: https://whhone.com/posts/org-agenda-repeated-tasks/ 17:38 me says:[[info๐ฎrg#Effort Estimates][org#Effort Estimates]] 17:40 me says:[[info๐ฎrg#Timestamps][org#Timestamps]] 17:42 new-to-org new-to-org says:Thank you. I didn't know timestamp could show range duration. 17:42 K karthink karthink says:(Sorry, I need five more minutes before I can speak) 17:46 Jared Jennings Jared Jennings says:i was just reading about org-supertag this morning. i have not tried it yet. sounds interesting 17:46 me says: https://github.com/yibie/org-supertag 17:49 JT Jeff Trull Jeff Trull says:Should I be seeing anything on the screen ๐ sorry arrived late 17:58 Jeff Trull says:nvm I see it now 17:58 Jared Jennings Jared Jennings says:"IGC branch?" ... [searches the web] ๐ 18:00 Jake Jake says:Has anyone run a profiler on loading an org-mode file? That seems like the best way to establish why it's slow for batch processing. 18:00 Jared Jennings Jared Jennings says:igc is [something] Garbage Collection 18:02 Jared Jennings says:(i have only ever run the binary distributions of released versions of emacs) 18:03 me says:org-agenda-file-menu-enabled 18:11 Jared Jennings Jared Jennings says:"Incremental," got it! cool 18:12 me says: https://yhetil.org/emacs-devel/?q=igc 18:14 me says:wip discussion 18:14 Jared Jennings Jared Jennings says:๐ 18:12 me says: https://sachachua.com/blog/2025/01/2025-01-06-emacs-news/ 18:14 me says:has links to igc discussions 18:15 me says: https://orgmode.org/worg/topics/how-many-files.html 18:19 Jared Jennings Jared Jennings says:i've got to hop out of here. thanks ihor, artsi0m, karthink! i came to lurk, and i learned several things already 18:35 K karthink karthink says:Addendum: I understand that using delay-mode-hooks to speed up opening Org files for (agenda) parsing is a bad idea because hooks can change the semantics of the document, such as via defining TODO keywords. But if I wanted to advise org-agenda or org-ql to do this, and call run-mode-hooks if/when I actually switch to that buffer interactively, how could I do it? (All of my org-mode-hooks only run non-semantic changes, like visuals and presentation changes.) 18:44 me says: https://orgmode.org/worg/org-tutorials/org-lookups.html 18:52 me says:window-selection-change-functions 19:04 me says:buffer-list-update-hook ๐ :end: -- Ihor Radchenko // yantar92, Org mode maintainer, Learn more about Org mode at <https://orgmode.org/>. Support Org development at <https://liberapay.com/org-mode>, or support my work at <https://liberapay.com/yantar92>
